C2Q or C2D

[keljaden]

I just graduated from high school and I am pretty good with computers and am going to go into computer engineering myself. Before I head off to college I am building myself a computer. I have spent the past year reading as much as I could and am getting mixed advice about which would be better, a C2Q or a C2D.
I sadly have a budget of only 1400-1500. (this includes a new monitor, speakers, and keyboard/mouse as mine are very outdated...2001)

But to stay on topic, I need to decide between the Q6600 or the E8400.

I am going to be needing this machine to last me for about 5 or 6 years and I have already decided on a motherboard that I can expand upon, but as for the present, I am a gamer and I want to know if the E8400 will suffice for the next 5 years, or should I get a Q6600 and OC it.

My case is air cooled, but is the antec 900 and with 3 120mm and a 200mm and a 92mm processor fan, i assume that I have enough cooling everything inside.

I am VERY NEW to OC, and while I have read the guide on how to OC the C2Q I am still very confused on what I need to do to OC to about 2.8 as I plan to be running games such as Gears of War, AOC, COD4, and Assassin's Creed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and if anyone has the time to give me any more advice on my upcoming purchase, just let me know and I will give you my aim, msn, yahoo, gmail, or xfire (also PM) so I can inform you on what my plans are. If there is a place on this forum to submit the rig, I would like to know where as I have many questions to ask about it.

I am gonna check back on this post in about 5 hrs as I am leaving for work in a few minutes. Thanks.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: keljaden
If there is a place on this forum to submit the rig, I would like to know where as I have many questions to ask about it.

Here will do just fine. We know a little about motherboards and video cards, also. To answer some of your questions, an E8400 will perform better for gaming today than a Q6600. The Q6600 will definitely be better for the future, but the problem is none of us knows for sure when that day will come. Today, only two or three games benefit from quads-- Supreme Commander, MS's Flight Simulator X, and I can't remember the last, unless it's UT3 or Quake Wars.

The real problem you face is that in 5 or 6 years, your system will be as slow as a computer from 2002-2003 would be today. Anyhow, with a $200 Q6600 or E8400, $150 8800GT or $200 8800GTS, $100-200 motherboard, ~$100 PSU, your current case, and a monitor you like, it's easy today to build a $1,500 system, even including the price of a monitor. Welcome to anandtech, BTW.

 

[DSF]

Threads asking for feedback on a setup are usually put in General Hardware. It won't hurt anything to put it here, but you might get more responses (especially about non-CPU components) in General Hardware.

Personally I'd go with the E8400 since you haven't really mentioned any use for the quad-core other than future gaming. As myocardia said, there's no telling when quad core will give a significant benefit. Even when that occurs, it will be a while before four cores are really required for gaming - most games are more dependent on GPU power than CPU power these days anyway.

Since you're looking at exploring overclocking, my choice would actually be the E7200. It will save you some money now which can be put towards upgrades in the future, and it will easily overclock past 3 GHz, making it a fine stand-in for the E8400.

You can't expect any computer built this year, no matter how state-of-the-art, to make a good gaming machine five or six years down the road. I would build a cost-effective computer now and sock away some money for an upgrade around the three year mark. Spend wisely on a case that you will be happy to transfer to the new build in the future (same with the monitor) and it will be a less expensive proposition the second time around.